With advances in optics and miniaturized assembly techniques, endoscopes now play a vital role in modern medicine. Endoscopes are flexible surgical tools used to introduce mechanical instruments, fluids, viewing instruments, and the like into a body. An endoscope, which generally has a tubular shape, is fed into an opening or incision in a body until the distal end of the endoscope is proximate a site to be observed or operated on. The interior of the endoscope includes one or more bores or lumens. These lumens act as passages for various instruments or tools that facilitate diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. For instance, a fiber optic cable with an optical lens (camera) can be integral to the endoscope or extended the length of the endoscope. The camera is operable to view the tissue proximate to the distal end of the endoscope. Other lumens can be used to provide light, fluids, mechanical surgical tools, or the like. Endoscopes are extremely useful to observe or biopsy internal organs such as the colon, bladder, stomach, lungs, liver, or the like. Overall, endoscopes have revolutionalized many procedures by giving the operating doctor much greater information from, and access to, internal structures without an invasive procedure. Doctors can now observe and diagnose organs and joints with minimal impact.
One area where endoscopes are used routinely is in the observation and measurement of tumors, internal growths, or other anatomical structures (ulcers, tears, scars, etc.). The size of such structures can be measured in a variety of ways. For instance, it is known to place graduations onto the camera lens of a fiber optic camera placed within an endoscope. Although the graduation measurements on the lens may be known, it is only possible to estimate the size of the internal structure because the distance from the lens to the structure is unknown. This type of measurement technique does not provide the depth of the structure. Another common solution is to electronically calculate the size of a structure. To accomplish this, a tool with uneven graduations will be placed near a structure. The observation equipment calculates a size scale to correct for the uneven graduations. This approach is generally expensive, overly complex, and not entirely accurate. Typically, this calculated method, as opposed to a direct reading method, will only measure the structure in one direction.
Measurement tools are known to have unevenly spaced graduations that are formed at a tip end portion of a flexible shaft. The shaft is detachably inserted through an instrument tool channel in an endoscope. The shaft is placed next to the structure, and can be observed via a camera. Again, the size of an internal structure can only be measured in one direction. The orientation of the shaft prohibits measurements in two directions. So while it is thought to be an improvement to have a direct reading tool, it is also thought to be nearly impossible to directly measure the dimensions of an object in two different directions with such a tool. Moreover, the known tools may require more than one measuring instrument, endoscope, or are otherwise overly complex. Direct reading tools may not take measurements along an axis perpendicular to the endoscope.
As such, there is a clear need within the medical industry for an inexpensive, easy to operate, simple, durable, and selectively removable direct reading endoscopic measurement instrument (‘DREMI’). Ideally, the DREMI provides accurate measurements of internal structures in at least one direction, including along an axis perpendicular to the endoscope. The apparatus and method of the present invention would effectively address shortcomings as known in the prior art.